1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to an image pickup device like a digital camera having a face detection function of detecting the face of a person in an image, a face detection method and a computer-readable recording medium.
2. Description of the Related Art
Recently, digital cameras or digital video cameras, which pick up an image of an object using a CCD or a MOS type solid-state image sensor, have a face detection function of automatically detecting the face of a subject person when picking up a still image or a dynamic image. In general, such digital cameras or the like having a face detection function perform focus control and exposure control based on image information on a region of a detected face part (face region).
To speed up a process of detecting a face (detection of a face region) on an arbitrary image and to eliminate unnecessary detection processes, a technology of causing a user to set the respective maximum values of a process time, the number of persons to be detected, and a face area ratio (a ratio between an area of a process target image and a total area of a face region already detected), and of terminating a detection process when any one of such values becomes maximum, is known.
To cause digital cameras or the like to perform effective face detection with the foregoing technology, however, a user (photographer) needs a bothersome operation of setting plural parameters which set down a face detection operation, such as a process time, the number of persons to be detected, and a face area ratio, when picking up an image.